Clemence Roy Darisse

Beyond the Ruins

Public presentation: Friday 9 October 2026, 5 PM

DesPrés — 57 Principale Nord Street, Sutton, QC

Public presentation

We invite you to join us in honoring the burned forest. To discover it, tell its story, and celebrate it. We may present excerpts of texts, choreographic pieces, and will have a collective sharing about these lost or beloved places, which we carry within us daily, and which we absolutely want to protect.

What remains beyond the ruins? Presences? Traces almost invisible but very real, on itching skins? Will the memory of the place remain? Through a dancing chorus of performers and recited poetry, the traces of a burned forest come back to life.

Biography

Clémence Roy-Darisse is an emerging author, director, and actress, born in Gatineau-Ottawa, working in Tiotiake-Montreal as well as in French-speaking Canada outside Quebec. Clémence enjoys exploring poetry in frankness and softness in revolt, in an artistic approach of collaboration with the territory and the performers. Holder of a master’s degree in theater on the integration of eco-emotions in this medium, Clémence primarily creates around ecological issues. In 2025, an excerpt from her text “I come from a territory where children are brought into the world” (working title) was presented at La Licorne. She is also co-founder of the organization Éclore and co-artistic director of Les Compagnons baroques.

Approach

An old woman sees the forest she loves, her home, reduced to ashes during an overly hot summer. Within it resided so many versions of herself: the granddaughter, the teenager, the mother, the grandmother, so many first times: first kiss, first divorce, first miscarriage, so many plants that healed her, stung her, confronted her, so many trees that listened to her, animals that judged her. As old age gnaws at her and the grief for this forest-home paralyzes her, the old woman wonders: what remains beyond the ruins? Presences? Traces almost invisible but very real, on itching skins? Will the memory of the place remain? Through a dancing chorus of performers, the traces of the burned forest come back to life. Consumed by grief, the woman recounts what she and the forest, together, once were. Two encyclopedias, which like birch bark, unfold before us, page by page. A journey where the life of a forest connects with that of a woman, an invitation to imagine the memories hidden within each tree, an invitation to realize how much our lives are populated by trees, flowers, and animals. To realize how we are already a bit of the forest and how we must take care of it.

Writing, Direction: Clémence Roy-Darisse

Performers: Julia Lozano, Sophie McPhail, Noémie Calderon Tremblay

Movement Advisor: Jade Gabriele Maya